I am looking to build my first computer.

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riddled

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se unió: 04/30/2013

I am looking to build my first computer. I am concerned about freedom and I want to run trisquel on it. I want to use an Intel i7 processer and I want 32 gb of ram (will have some virtual machines). I am concerned about the motherboard and whether it is compatible with Trisquel or not. The motherboard I am looking at is here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132132&cm_re=asus_motherboard-_-13-132-132-_-Product. Anybody know anything about this motherboard? If not can anyone recommend one. On the asus website it says this motherboard only supports windows 7, 8, and 8.1.

Magic Banana

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se unió: 07/24/2010

I do not think there is any compatibility issues with motherboards.

riddled

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se unió: 04/30/2013

I hope not. But I will hang around a little longer to be sure on the forums to be sure.

Garsmith
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se unió: 07/27/2013

I did write a long answer but the page here changed to a "Accessed denied" and everything got lost. Here is a shorter version.

Product specifications.
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_Z97_MARK_2/specifications/

I know that Asus Z97I Plus works except wifi and bluetooth. Displayport, HDMI, DVI-D and VGA works. Network, audio, USB3 internal and external ports, SATA3. Everything integrated in Intels chip works. Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2 has the same network chip so that will work. Search on Realteks page or search the net and see if the Realtek ALC1150 works. Same with the extra ASMedia USB3 ports work. Look around if you can get the information on bluetooth and wifi chips and see if they are supported.

Search at h-node.org. If you find information about a product on the net if it works of not, add it in the h-node database to help other people in the future.

Sasaki
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se unió: 08/11/2014

When I'll make my new pc I'll not only take hardware compatible with trisquel, but also a coreboot or libreboot compatible motherboard :
http://www.coreboot.org/Supported_Motherboards

t3g
t3g
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se unió: 05/15/2011

I tried getting one of those last year for my AMD FX-8350, but they were either out of stock and if they were in stock, horribly outdated and around the same price as newer models that had more features.

tomlukeywood
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se unió: 12/05/2014

the motherboard like most motherboards would use a non-free bios
if you want a free bios theirs a list of supported motherboards here:
http://www.libreboot.org/docs/hcl/index.html#supported_list
but they will be older and wont support a i7 at least yet

if you don’t mind a non-free bios
the motherboard wont have any other freedom problems
the things you need to think about are add-on devices
like graphics cards wifi cards etc

for graphics
if you get a intel's board the integrated graphics it will work perfectly but if you want a modern graphics card

here is one that works well with free software:
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/geforce-8400gs-1gb-pci-express-20-video-card-gnulinux-full-low-profile-brackets

but of course you dont rely need a gpu
i ran 0ad on a computer fine at low setting
4gb ram ddr3
intel integrated graphics
2.13ghz quad core cpu i3
80mbps HDD

and if you have a more powerful processor
e.g an i7 and a decent HDD or ideally a super fast SSD
then like i do you can run just about any graphical program
at very high settings
having fast ram helps with this though
as the system ram is used for video memory
so the faster the system ram is the faster
your pc can process graphics

for wifi cards (Ethernet will work fine):
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/catalog/wireless-networking-gnulinux

https://h-node.org/wifi/catalogue/en

for sound cards this one works well
the fact that its usb 2.0 dose not matter
it gives very good sound

https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-usb-20-external-usb-sound-card-gnu-linux

also you can look for other ones on hnode
https://h-node.org/soundcards/catalogue/en

also if your going to build a pc and have the money
i highly recommend getting a cheaper 128gb or 64gb ssd
for storing your programs and os
and a second bigger 500gb or 1tb HDD
for storing music video etc

you can make trisquel mount you HDD
from startup by editing this file:
/etc/fstab:
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
#
# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=09c679cf-a27f-4e71-9765-0b73f1784154 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sdb5 during installation
UUID=da998e20-f8fe-4718-9388-9dda8ce8c61f none swap sw 0 0
/dev/sr0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/sda /media/HDD\0401tb ext4#this is my harddrive mounted from /dev/sda as /media/HDD\0401tb with its file system ext4

if you need help editing this file then feel free to
ask on the forums its not too hard

Magic Banana

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se unió: 07/24/2010

you dont rely need a gpu

Intel HD and Iris Graphics are (integrated) GPUs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_graphics_processing_units

And, yes, riddled wants one of them.

tomlukeywood
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se unió: 12/05/2014

sorry i meant a pci gpu

Jodiendo
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se unió: 01/09/2013

riddled

Most of the time, all ASUS motherboards will allowed you install other OSI's without issues. I have 4 different MODEL Asus Boards, all 1155 socket boards that allowed you in the bios, to disable the OSI preference and are friendly to other type of gnu/Linux OSI'S. I use Trisquel and they do work flawlessly.

Since, you are buying a High End board, that is a 1150 Socket and I suspect, you will be probably add an additional high end, Intel processor with Haswell micro-architecture, lets hope they are friendly.

I don't know much about them, but, according, to the CPU manufactures web site; the spec's and other forums, I have read, they do enforce DRM policies with back doors. I'll advise you to research them thoroughly, before making a compulsory decision. Make your decision based on your need and not some crappy Hyper comment.

For the amount of money, you going to spend, I could buy 2 mother boards that will fit my criteria. Unless you are one of those daddy kids wasting money without principals.

Respectfully

Magic Banana

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se unió: 07/24/2010

I don't know much about them, but, according, to the CPU manufactures web site; the spec's and other forums, I have read, they do enforce DRM policies with back doors. I'll advise you to research them thoroughly, before making a compulsory decision.

The website to do that is http://ark.intel.com and you neither want "Intel® vPro Technology" nor "Trusted Execution Technology". Those implement DRMs. Ideally you would not want "Intel ME" and "Intel AMT" but that is close to impossible nowadays. Gluglug managed to disable that on their ThinkPad X200 though: http://libreboot.org/docs/hcl/x200_remove_me.html

riddled

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se unió: 04/30/2013

Thanks everybody for the advice. This was going to be my first build, and I already see that I am in way over my head, with back doors that enforce DRM, and everything. Luckily I haven't spent the money on anything. I have decided to keep saving my money and buy from Think Penquin, because the main objective in all of this was to remain as free as possible with no binary blobs etc. And at least with them I know my system will be libre. And they give 25% to Trisquel so that is a win-win.

Magic Banana

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se unió: 07/24/2010

ThinkPenguin checks everything we talked about. That is the easiest way to go.

tomlukeywood
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se unió: 12/05/2014

the computers at thinkpenguin
work perfectly with libre software
but still have a non-free bios

so there much much better than most pc
but still not perfect

if you want a computer with a completely libre bios
look here:
http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/

i have one of the netbooks
and they are very light small and portable
have no heating problems even
at 100% cpu usage(at least while i was using it)

the one i got was a x60
with 2gb ram and a 1.66ghz
cpu which is not great
but you can get higer spec computers
like the x200 which has a 64-bit dual core
prosessor

but if you are not willing to go for a less powerfull machine
then the thinkpenguin ones would be a good choice

Jodiendo
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se unió: 01/09/2013

riddled

I know the decision of buying a PC is taunting when it comes to buy what Fits your need and desire.
Myself and Magic Banana do recommend to purchase from the Think Penguin web site, that are already build.
If you find assembling a PC from scratch, very difficult. Then buy one already build.
Myself, Ill enjoy assembly them. Not only, I would learn how to do it, and you will understand your system spec's, capabilities and weakness.

Knowing this, You need to decide wisely. Either build or buy one already made. Think Penguin already offers different build configurations of laptops and desktops. You could customized them. from the memory, drive sizes etc.

I have purchase a few items from Video cards, WIFI dongles from ThinkPenguin and in my opinion they are top notch items that run libre from proprietary drivers.

2 categories of PC to consider:

Either you want a desktop or a Laptop.
At the end you need to decide wisely.
We are here to help you for your best decision.
So again, Happy hunting.

muhammed
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se unió: 04/13/2013

Has anyone bought from InaTux? They sell desktop PCs with a free BIOS, and the hardware is free software compatible.

http://inatux.com/?gnu

Michał Masłowski

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se unió: 05/15/2010

See any post about AMD GPUs on this forum. Their computers are not
"free software compatible" and their BIOS is not free.

JadedCtrl
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se unió: 08/11/2014

Um. IdaTux is linked on the FSF website, so they are "free software compatbile."

onpon4
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se unió: 05/30/2012

AMD (or "ATI") cards are compatible, sure, but they're crap. You won't get any 3-D acceleration with them, in particular.

I do wonder what kinds of CPUs they ship, though. If the Intel CPUs are somewhat recent, the AMD card added in would make the system worse, because the Intel integrated GPU would certainly be better.

Michał Masłowski

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se unió: 05/15/2010

It's listed at https://www.gnu.org/links/companies.html next to a seller
of laptops with Intel wifi requiring blobs. I already reported these
bugs to GNU Webmasters several months ago.

muhammed
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se unió: 04/13/2013

Edited
post

I wonder whether we should remove Inatux from the Documentation (Please let me know if I have misunderstood / made a
mistake)

(1) Wifi requires nonfree software: the computer will work without the
on-board wifi. But people who order a PC with a wifi card will expect
working wifi.

(2) AMD GPU won't run with all features: again, the computer will work
without 3D (etc?). But people who pay for that hardware may expect
those features.

(3) Inatux advertises "free bios", and people here say that the BIOS
includes non-free parts. The OS can't just ignore the BIOS like it can
ignore non-free wifi cards and non-free AMD features.

Michał Masłowski

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se unió: 05/15/2010

http://inatux.com/ lists two computers. Both have AMD APUs with
integrated Radeon GPUs, which work either showing a black screen and
hanging the system (if KMS is enabled), or with the vesa driver which
probably doesn't support the native resolution of the screen (necessary
for wide or LCD screens).

The laptop is from HP which whitelists supported wifi cards, so I trust
HP's site to list all wifi cards that it might be shipped with.
http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dstore/html/pdfs/US_CA_English_215_G1_Notebook_data_sheet_Oct_2013.pdf
has one vendor matching the "802.11b/a/g/n" from InaTux's site:
Broadcom. So nonfree firmware is needed (the other Ralink and Realtek
chips also need nonfree firmware).

These are "obvious" things that one can find on the Web looking for
specific keywords. Someone using the machine might find additional
issues e.g. with suspend and resume on non-Windows OSes or other boot
firmware bugs.

I believe we should never recommend AMD graphics (until some hackers
replace both AtomBIOS and the kernel-loaded microcode) nor laptops with
wifi not working without nonfree firmware. We should not recommend
products shipped with Trisquel preinstalled unless they fully support
it.

tomlukeywood
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se unió: 12/05/2014

(1)
if the wifi requires non-free software thats not a good thing
not too hard to replace with a libre wifi card but still
there a quite a few people (like myself about 6 months ago)
that would just install the non-free wifi blob
as for many people with laptops its the only practical way they connect to the internet

(2)
the GPU is not as big a problem as it will still run but only
without graphics acceleration so for a basic desktop user
this dose not matter too much but its not ideal

(3)
they do not advertise a free bios this is from there site:

"Free BIOS (Coreboot, etc.): Our computers are not yet available with a Free BIOS, but we are very interested in offering that option in the future."

the Coreboot bios they offer will not be completely libre
they offer it as its a improvement over the factory bios

although they should of said
Free BIOS (Libreboot, etc)
at the start of the quote

tomlukeywood
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se unió: 12/05/2014

from the inatux page:
"We can build systems with Coreboot as the BIOS, but there will be some limitations"

they can flash coreboot but coreboot by default contains some non-free blobs

so it might not be a fully free bios

it would still be better than the completely non-free bios
that comes with the system though